March 24. Spent some time on the farm today – fed the pigs, filled feed buckets, collected eggs. This is the new hen house Matt just built – the covering is actually an old vinyl billboard.

March 23. Just a nice spring evening outside the apartment.

March 22. Making dinner.

March 21. Happy first day of spring!

Yesterday I returned from leading a spring break trip for Outdoor Adventures. We took a group of 10 people to the American Southwest for a trip full of backpacking, hiking and sightseeing.

We started by driving from Friday afternoon to Saturday afternoon to Lee’s Ferry, a historic Colorado River crossing upriver from the Grand Canyon. For Friday’s photo of the day, I nabbed this shot of the moonrise over a rest area in Tucumcari, New Mexico.

After we started driving to Lee’s Ferry from Flagstaff, the wind really started to pick up. By the time we reached Lee’s Ferry, we had to drive through an area of the canyon where the wind was being funneled, picking up all kinds of dust and debris and throwing it across the road (photo of the day, March 13).

We arrived at the Lee’s Ferry campground around 4 p.m., and in the two hours after we arrived the temperature dropped about 20 degrees. The wind continued to gust throughout the night – if I had to guess I’d say at 50 or 60 miles per hour. We made dinner and hunkered down in our tents (which were quite hard to set up in the wind) for the night. In the morning, a coating of snow lined the canyon walls above us, but as the sun came out the temperature climbed up to a pleasant 55 or 60 degrees. We packed our backpacks and set out into the Paria River Canyon (Photo of the Day, March 14: Whitney near the trailhead into Paria Canyon).

We weren’t sure how far we’d be able to get into the canyon, since rangers and BLM officials continually warned us that the Paria River was running higher than usual, and that we’d have to cross the river dozens of times as we worked our way into the canyon (we had to abandon our plans to explore the upper Paria Canyon slot canyons because of the flooding, caused by extreme snowfall in Utah this winter). But, we bravely donned our wetsuit booties and crossed the river. By the end of the day, we’d crossed the river about 10 times without incident (the water was cold and swift, but was usually only knee-deep) and made camp at a beautiful bend in the river beneath two gnarled Cottonwood Trees. During the afternoon the sun had disappeared behind a blanket of clouds, making the day feel much cooler. We made dinner and called it a night.

The next morning we awoke to glowing canyon walls (Photo of the Day, March 15, above). As the sun rose, the walls of the Paria changed from brilliant red to burnt gold. We left our campsite set up and day hiked farther into the Paria, leaving the river below temporarily as we hiked paths along the canyon walls. We saw three Desert Bighorn Sheep that were quite alert to our presence, scrambling up the canyon and out of sight before we could get close.

The next day we hiked out of the Paria, loaded up the cars and departed. After a stop at the Navajo Bridge over Marble Canyon, we drove into the Grand Canyon via the Desert View entrance. We were able to get a campsite in a spur of the Mather Campground and then left to watch the sun set over the Grand Canyon (Photo of the Day, March 16, below):

On Wednesday we drove through Monument Valley to Canyonlands National Park in Utah, which is one of the coolest National Parks I have ever seen. We stayed on BLM land outside the park, where we witnessed this awesome sunset (Photo of the Day, March 17, below):

On Thursday we got up early and started a day hike into Elephant Canyon in the park. The rock formations were amazing – Dr. Seuss-like toadstools lined the canyon walls. We hiked 5.5 miles up the stream flowing in Elephant Canyon, at some points scrambling up rock faces and climbing ladders to get to our ultimate destination: Druid Arch. While the arch was spectacular, its surroundings were just as amazing – an amphitheater of sandstone toadstools surrounding us on every side (Photo of the Day, March 18, below).

After our hike, we drove to Moab, ate dinner, and set up camp in Arches National Park. The next day we woke up and took in the park before starting our long drive home. As we started our hike 1.5-mile hike to the famous Delicate Arch, the skies clouded over, the temperature cooled and ice pellets began to fall. But once we reached Delicate Arch, the sun came out, and we had the arch to ourselves for nearly half an hour (Photo of the Day, March 19, below) – remarkable, considering we passed about 75 people heading to the arch on the way down.

After that, we began our drive home – in Colorado, we passed a construction zone on I-70 where a rockslide tore holes in the highway a week earlier (Photo of the Day, March 20, below). We continued in bad weather through Colorado and Kansas (I don’t think the state of Kansas owns any type of snow plow or salt truck).

Despite the bad weather, we made it home! There’s lots more pictures from the trip that I hope to share, but for now I just wanted to upload the photos of the day. I’ll post more in the next few days, if school allows.